Fifty Shades of Cheese: The Chumley Chronicles
by Leoharp
Summary: This is the origin story for Chumley Huffington. This is also the story for how he has to die and why he is choosing his death. Be warned: this is not a light read.


Chapter 1: Why I Like Koala Bears

This is my life now. I hoped that one day I would escape it. The perscription pain killers. The biometric blood sugar monitors. The clinically diagnosed depression and binge eating. The constant appraisal from my therapist. I was so convinced I could prove myself that I never considered what I was worth to begin with. What did my life mean? What could I provide to this mysognistic world? I write this because this won't be my life much longer. I must end what my father began. Once I pull the plug and let my sugar levels crash, I won't be anyone's problem anymore. I won't be used. I won't be a burden. I will be what I was meant to be: forgotten. But before this happens, I owe it to the friends that I've made here at Duelist Academy to know why this is it. From what I recall, it began with my father.

My earliest memory was my four year old self. I was in a dueling camp. A private camp designed to introduce children into the game of Yu-Gi-Oh. Back then, it was involuntarily known as Kaiba's Kids, but the name became changed to Peppermint Peggys when Mr. Pegasus decided to buy out the camp and stage it as a front for more publicity. Little did I know as that four year old kid that I would become that man's personal assitant and the new CEO of Industrial Illusions. It was all my father's idea of course. He wanted his "young man" to become the top duelist, a position he was never able to aspire to. By cultivating me, it was as if he was successful too. Like he was the best for making me the best.

I wasn't the best by any capacity. In fact, I lost my first card game. Funny right? I was so bad. I didn't know how to use anything. I didn't even know that you had a fusion deck. I thought that they were shuffled into your main deck. Suffice to say, I lost all my life points and I cried. I cried like a "bleeding-vagina-sissy bitch'' as my father used to say. At the time, I hadn't had a bad memory of my father. As that little boy, I loved my father. And my mother. But on that day in particular, my father came to pick me up. The counselors tried to repeatedly reassure my father that my crying was solely the result of losing the game. Which was correct. That didn't matter to my father though. He thanked them quickly, grabbed my stuff, put me in the back seat of the car, and drove.

I was so upset about losing the game that it didn't occur to me until minutes later that we weren't heading home. My loving father was dead quiet. Not a breath out of place. Not a glance in my direction. I remember feeling the car move faster than normal, but of course I didn't know how to read a spedometer as a kid.

"Papa, what's wrong?"

Nothing. He was sweating profusely. More than normal for a summer day. It was the middle of summer from what I recall. I wondered was why my father was so frozen. It was like watching a schizophrenic after medication. They become neutralized. My father couldn't blink or so much as take his eyes off the road. I tried looking out the window to ascertain where we could possibly be, but my father made so many turns. He blew past red lights, stop signs, and anything red that stood out. Not that it mattered.

It took only a few more minutes of my inconsolable crying until my eyes met our destination. The hospital. I don't remember the name. I didn't have time to look. My father yanked me up from the child's seat and jogged us through the doors. There were so many nurses and doctors brushing past us. The place smelled of citrus mixed with bleach. My brain couldn't handle most of it, but my sensations were interrupted by my father.

"Where is she? What room?"

"Who sir?"

"My wife! Where is she? Is she okay?"

"Calm down sir! Tell me her name."

"Maria! Maria Huffington!"

The person behind the desk began making calls while my father kept yelling at every employee he could find. Amongst the chaos, I looked up at a television screen that sat atop a corner of farthest wall. That was the first time in my life I saw Yugi Muto. He was dueling Seto Kaiba at some kind of tournament from the looks of it. The host talking about him on the screen appeared so happy. The way Yugi proudly displayed his prized cards made me wonder about mine. What's it like to be the King of Games? What's it like to win? To be adored? To cherish a drawing inscribed on a piece of paper? Looking at him made me enjoy Yu-Gi-Oh, even if for the briefest of moments.

Then it was snatched from me. My father sat me on top of his shoulder as we ran over to another doctor. My focus was still towards the screen, but a single word shattered my eardums.

_Died_.

You know what's funny? I don't think I knew what that word meant as a boy. I don't remember hearing it before that day. It didn't sound familiar in any capacity. Somehow, I knew it was evil to hear. I knew it was a bad omen. It might have been because it was the only time I saw my father cry. He didn't just cry. His face convulsed into a red mess and the sweat on his face from earlier was replaced with the reservoir of tears behind that exterior.

I cried too. At the time, I didn't know why I myself was crying. I guess I didn't like seeing my father that way. I wanted to go home and see my mother already. She always gave me a large hug and made me feel like I was the only kid in the world. To me, that meant more to me than this horrid place. But my father kept crying. And crying. And crying. It didn't stop.

I tried to find the screen again, hoping it could cheer me up. But that duelist wasn't there. His warm smile wasn't there to comfort me. I ran my fingers across the pocket I had my cards in. But my father took my hand away from them. He sat me down upon a lonesome seat in the back of the hospital. The others around us appeared dimensionless. They ignored us as easily as I ignored them. This was also among the few occasions I looked deep within his eyes.

"Son…you have to understand…when I tell you this."

He wiped the last of his tears. His face was still undeniably red.

"Your mother…she loves you. She did. She does. I…she is going somewhere. We're not going to see her again. It's just going to be you and me."

My father never hugged me. Even in this instance, he wouldn't. I was almost convinced he didn't know how. He sat away from me, keeping his head in his lap. Every so often, a few doctors and nurses would come along our way to rehabilitate us. More so my weeping willow of a father. One of the nurses stayed with me, which I'm assuming was to keep me distracted from the confusion. I don't recall much of the onversations I had with her. She pointed to my deck a couple of times and I remember showing her the cards. Most of them were terrible. Or at least I thought so. Despite that, she made me smile a couple times. A few jokes. A few funny faces of hers. But there was something she gave me towards the end of our conversation that changed my life.

As a kid, I was too stupid to notice. She was so sad. She was crippled with a burden she shouldn't have had to carry. Under normal circumstances, I don't understand the process of which the doctors give you the belongings of the deceased. What I remember was her hand cupping mine with a card face down.

"She…your mother…wanted you to have this," she began with the widest forced smile I will ever see, "She told me this was her favorite card. Flip it over kiddo."

And so I did. What I saw was beautiful. It made me miss her immediately. You see, my mother loved koala bears. They were everywhere in the house. Koala pillow cases. Koala shaped mugs. Pictures of my mother rescuing them. Any step you took in the house, you were bound to come across an image or shape of one. I knew this was her prized possession just from the touch of it. Why? My father drunkenly would tell me years later.

Don't wrap your brain around that. What's important was that I heard a sniffle from her nose. She wiped it with her other hand and smiled again.

"She said this was her prized possession. Until…you and your father came into her life. She is sorry…that she won't be able to see. But…but she wants you to know that even when you can't see her, you will hear her. You just…have to listen for her."

I immediately pressed the card to my ear. I listened and listened. Nothing. All I heard were shuffles of feet. Chatter. Whispers. The television. But my mother was gone. I forgot the sound of her voice. Even though I did, it was the koala bear that was beautiful. Everytime I saw this card, this Des Koala, I knew it was her. I knew she was there. Rooting for me. Watching me. Letting me know that I will make it to the other side safer than she had.

The nurse stood up though and shook my scruffy hair.

"God bless you kiddo. You will be blessed."

And just like that, she was gone. The color of the turqouise scrubs mingled with the replicas. I then found my father's hands lifting me up atop of his shoulders. It was an experience similar to that of weightlessness. I didn't quite understand that my mother was truly gone. There was a hope I had where she would be back home later that night. The hope was strong enough to keep me from crying. My father lost all the tears he ever had that day because he would never shed one again.

The rest of the day is mostly a blur to me now. The night I spent in my home was me standing in front of the door. I stared at it perpetually. It'll open I thought. It'll open. It has too.

And it never did. My father didn't bother watching my struggle. He slipped away into the bedroom with the door closed. I didn't mind sleeping on the floor. I was so certain she would come in and tuck me to bed like always.

When I awoke the next morning, nothing changed. It was all the same. It was as if time didn't pass and the daylight never left. Stranger than night, I couldn't cry. I couldn't stand. The ground was so comforting. Memory couldn't serve me any better. I'm glad that I forgot most of the pain. I think now that I'm writing this, I understand why this happened. Why the end began. I don't think I deserved my mother. From what I knew of her, she was too pure for the life bestowed on me. She certainly didn't deserve my father, but I am his son. She didn't need us weighing her down. If there is an afterlife, I wish to tell her that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I failed her as a son. I can't apologize enough. I gave this life my best. I thought finding a path would give the life she gave me purpose. All it gave me was defeat.

It becomes harder and harder to discover the meaning of life. What's the point? What does it mean? Death will provide me the answer: good or bad. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I leave behind the name I had and the name you friends remember me by. Before that happens, there is more you all should know.


End file.
